o
to the show. You going?"

Tim Reardon, thrusting his hands into his pockets and closing his
fingers on a single five cent piece, three wire nails and a broken
bladed jack-knife, looked expressively at Harvey.

"I dunno," he replied. "P'raps so."

Jack Harvey took the hint.

"Come along with us," he said. "Where's the rest of the crew?"

"They're going--got the money," said Tim.

Harvey looked surprised. His crew, so called because the three other
members of it besides Tim Reardon had sailed with him on his sloop in
Samoset bay, were generally hard up.

"All right," said Harvey, "you can go with Henry Burns and George Warren
and me. Come on. Let's go down town and see the parade."

The blare of trumpets and the clashing of brass was shaking the very
walls of the city of Benton. A steam calliope, shrieking a tune
mechanically above the music of the band and the roar of carts, was
frightening farmers' horses to the point of frenzy. Handsome, sleek
horses, stepping proudly, were bearing their gaily dressed riders in
cavalcade. And the rumble of the heavy, gilded carts gave an undertone
to the sound. Bagley & Blondin's great moral and scientific show was
making its street parade, prior to the performance.

Tim Reardon stood between Henry Burns and Jack Harvey on a street
corner, with George Warren close by. Tim Reardon's eyes seemed likely to
pop clean out of his head.

"There he is! There he is, Jack!" he exclaimed all at once, fairly
gasping with excitement.

"Who is?" asked Harvey.

"The man-eating tiger," cried Tim. "It says so on the cage."

Harvey chuckled. "I'd like to throw you in there, Tim," he said. "He'd
be scared to death of you. Here's the real thing coming, though. Say,
what do you think of that?"

The float that approached was certainly calculated to fire the brain of
youth. On the platform, open to view from all sides, there was set up in
the centre the trunk of a small tree, to which was securely bound, by
hand and foot, the figure of a huntsman, clad in garb of skins, buckskin
leggings and moccasins. A powder horn was slung picturesquely from one
shoulder, and a great hunting-knife--alas useless to him now--stuck
conspicuously in his belt.

Around this hapless captive there moved the figures of three savages,
their faces streaked with various hues of paint, their war-bonnets of
eagles' feathers flaunting, and wonderful to behold. Each bore in his
right hand a gleaming tomahawk, which